This is my favorite progressive league team - I took it over in 1964 and it is now 1967. It is finally showing signs of life and I have recently made a couple of trades to shore up the starting pitching which already had Jim Kaat, Denny Lemaster and Tommy John. I was able to add Jim McGlothlin and Mel Queen.

I have a bullpen that is passable, not bad but not great: a couple of long releivers in Bob Shaw and Frank Bertaina, a good closer in John Wyatt, three setup men in Hank Aguirre (not too bad) , Bob Hendley, and Fred Lasher. It will get me through the season and has been surprisingly effective but is not made up of world beaters.

So here is my question: do I move Tommy John to the bullpen, to have a first rate setup A that can pitch very frequently, backing up what are now four good starters?

The four I would have include one with good IP (Kaat at 264), but the others hover around 200 IP - so if I move John to the bullpen, I need to set their pitch counts to around 5-6 IP (say 85-90 pitches) when they are the best pitchers on the staff with the partial exception of closer Wyatt. Of course I could then count on John to come in as setup. Or do I stick with a five man rotation, which puts little stress on the starters, and count on the okay if not great bullpen as currently constituted ?

Here are the RL numbers of the starting rotation as currently configured (five starters):

You want to get the most IP out of your best pitchers. Having just one as a Setup A might not do that. I'd actually be tempted to put Kaat, Lemaster, and McGlothlin in a 3-man rotation and both Queen and John as Setup A, with the ability to come in as early as the 5th and high pitch counts. You'll get 5+ IP/game out of Kaat and 4 out of the others and your big setup A crew will come in for the second half of the game when it's at all close but will stay out when it's a blow-out either way. Lots of chances for PHs then too if this isn't a DH league. Just my 2 cents!

Thanks both of you crazyamos and TJ. Have to think about it. I could experiment with each approach as it is early enough in the season and while I hope to compete this season, it would be a long shot (team should improve over the next couple of seasons, but is just reaching decent competitiveness), so with expectations not that high a little risk taking is not out of the question.

get the maximum innings from your best pitchers and have some of your best at Setup/Closer. doesn't matter how you accomplish those goals, move pitchers around as much as you want. When choose pitchers roles I never think that I'm stuck with those roles all season.